new project / old boat. introducing " 'flite-risk "

[John Nelson]

I don't think those panels are going to help you out, I haven't worked in the industry. I keep grasping at straws. The guys who use plywood for the deck have to use wood stringers because they have to use screws to hold it down. Old growth cedar has good rot resistance. They need to have enough fiber glass over them to provide strength if they rot out. Honduras mahogany is dimensionally stable and might give a better chance of staying sealed with a light lay up. I moved my stringers in 1.5" so they would be over the old tabs. I tapered my center stringer into the cabin about 10' and the floor crosses the hull where the inner stringers meet the hull. The stringers are exposed under the cabinet and bunk. the boats were built defective and few lasted more than 20 years. It shouldn't matter if some one used it for a bird bath or hot tub. I try to make them into what they were supposed to be. Despite being heavy and extra labor and expense. Iv'e been to nanaimo and Princess louisa Inlet with it. People who have ridden in it have said it has a lot of power and it planes at a low speed.

['flite-risk]

That's a big trip in a little boat. I did it twice decades ago, both times in a 1977 28' Fiberform Executive cabin cruiser with twin ford 302's. Put it in the water in Anacortes and made it to Campbell River/Cortez Island on the first trip and as far north as Port Hardy the second time. We intended to do the inside passage all the way to Alaska on the second trip, but weather, time off work, and the cost of feeding 2 thirsty v-8's conspired against us. We did the stretch of the Strait of Georgia between Nanaimo and Campbell River in some fairly nasty weather and big swells. I wasn't terribly comfortable doing that on a 28' boat with a 10' beam, I can't imagine it in anything smaller. It was the first and only time I experienced sitting on the upper bridge deck of that boat and not being able to see anything but the swell in front of you when you were in the trough between swells.

These days I'm much more of a fair-weather sailor and keep to protected waters

-Drew T

['flite-risk]

Just a progress update, I haven't been great about taking pictures, but I got the new transom fully glassed- in as well as the new keel stringer. The transom has 3/4oz chop mat between the old outer skin and the first layer of ply as well as between the 2 layers of ply. It has 2layers of 1708 and 2 layers of 6oz woven roving over the plywood on the inside of the transom. On the outside of the transom, I patched up all the holes and cracked areas with multi-layer 1708 patches and then did one complete layer of 1708 and 2 layers of 6oz woven roving over the whole outside. I have two more of the old stringers cut out of it and new ones bonded in place with thickened epoxy, but still need to glass those two completely. I used up my first 2.66gal batch of 635 3:1 thin epoxy from us composites to get that far and have another 2.66gal kit showing up on tuesday.

I did trim the center/keel stringer down in the cabin area to put the cabin floor down about 3" lower than the rest of the deck so I can hopefully lower the bench/bunk height about the same amount and gain that much headroom. I think I'm going to put a drain in the cabin floor with a pvc elbow and pipe to a scupper/check valve that dumps to the main bilge sump so any water that gets to the cabin floor will drain to the bilge but bilge water won't backflow into the cabin. I didn't taper the center stringer as John described he did on his, I'm just making a 3" step down at the cabin bulkhead.

John, I can see now what you meant when you said these boats were built defective. The old stringers were only bonded to the hull in a couple small areas and with the few thin layers of glass that went over the top of them. The stringers were not glassed over completely on either end, the bow ends of the stringers on either side of the keel just terminated in the middle of an unsupported area of the hull, and they were very roughly/poorly cut to fit the hull and had no thickened resin gluing them in or providing fillets for the over layers of glass. It looks like they did the hull layup in the mold, rough cut the lumber from a template, and slapped the stringers in while the hull layup was still wet, which means it just bonded to the 2 most prominent points of the lumber on the hull side, and then they slathered in about 3 layers of very wet 6 or 8oz fabric over them (again, poorly, not even covering or sealing the ends). Also the hull layup is very dry in the places where the stringers did bond to the hull, probably because the wood was soaking up resin from the layup of the hull. I've been around some of the newer/larger Uniflites (early to mid '70's boats), there must have been some big improvements in the build quality over that decade, because I did not see any of those kinds of amateur defects on those later boats.

Anyway, still making slow but steady progress.

-Drew T.

[John Nelson]

"The hull layup is very dry" They didn't seem that way in the 70s, I don't know if it is possible it seems like the resin has dissipated some. I don't think you're in for it with that boat, I have added a layer of mat and roving to the whole inside of a hull to stabilize it and get some fresh material to work on. I didn't make a drain for my cabin it bails out easy enough. I make fiberglass tubes 1/8 thick to go through bulkheads and transoms. I couldn't get anything to stick to pvc. The sump for the bilge pump only need to be about1" deep, it makes the deck drain easier, also You could have the cabin drain come through the transom low and connect the tubes to the pvc with some silicone hose and clamps. It wouldn't matter if the stopper was in the cabin or outside of transom.

['flite-risk]

So far I've got all the stringers and transom completely glassed in. I pulled the cap off the hull tonight and yanked the hull off the trailer because I intend to roll the hull over to sand and repair and paint the bottom and I have some trailer repairs to do while there isn't anything on it. I used an old trailer axle from my old rusted out jon boat trailer to roll the cap around the yard to get it out of the way.

Any thoughts on paints to use for this boat? I have some barrier coat epoxy primer for the bottom of the hull after my repairs are done, but haven't decided what to use for the finish coats. I'd like to use something that will hold up below the waterline since this boat really won't need anti-fouling bottom paint the way I use it. I keep going back and forth in my head whether to go with a single stage polyurethane or just use a alkyl enamel like the rustoleum topside paint. Either way, I'm just going to roll it on, not looking for professional paint quality, just shiney and clean enough my family won't mind being seen aboard it.

[Helmar]

Progress is looking pretty good.
Several of the boats that I have done over the years, I have built up the hull with more matt laid in just to make it stronger. Pretty much all the Skagits built some strong hulls with the stingers and all.
Mostly the Bell Boys and of course the Rinell boats needed more.

My little bell boy 16 I am going to finish, I built the skagit hull in it so she could pretty much go on any trailer without worrying about pressure points. That boat will be Very light all the way around.

I would have to say you could build the hell out of the hull with much more layup and still come out lighter than any of the newer aluminum boats. I remember the old days, Buy an Aluminum boat, it's much lighter...Yeah, back when they had frames and aluminum sheeting you could open up with a can opener.

I will of course use the Fiberlay floatation adhesive foam as if you are going to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat to take on water, its got to come all the way up through the floor before she opens up. Being down here in Oregon and around the Columbia River, Lots of hidden boulders just under the water surface.

I am sure your project will outlast us all for sure. keep up the posts on progress

Helmar

['flite-risk]

I did end up putting an extra layer of 1708 between each stringer just to tie everything together inside, I could definitely feel the difference in stiffness of the hull bottom walking around on it after that, feels much more stable underfoot.

Today I got the hull rolled over in the yard and started scraping and pressure washing off the layers of old bottom paint. I hate bottom paint. At least I'm not crawling on my back under a trailer or blocks/jackstands to sand and paint this one.

[Helmar]

This has always been a good topic, What do you use for Bottom paint.
Well, if a trailer boat not left in the water, not in Saltwater was
always some of the questions.

I ran into a guy up in Port Townsend at the boat haven that pulled his
sailboat out of the saltwater every two years and was using a Nonmarine
paint from Benjamin Moore that was for Metal and it was an Alcolide
paint for bottom fouling paint. That of course was just brushed and
tipped it. I put several coats, like three as I did not want to mess
with it again, then wet sanded it, buffed it and it looked like it came
out of a paint booth. Waxed it with a Teflon wax and it was done. You
know, less drag, all that stuff. For the hull sides, I used the Interlux
paint,

For topside paint, I will have to go look to see if I can find the can
(Had to shut my shop down and move it to storage) as that was a Benjamin
Moore paint again that was again an Alcolide paint that was designed to
lay down easy and it worked.

This is where you decide what type of paint job you want. I call them a
5-5, and 10-10 paint jobs, 5 feet away at 5mph, looks good, or 10 feet
at 10mph, looks good.
If you want it to look like it was shot in a booth, add the third coat,
let it cure real good, wet sand, buff, and keep wax on it or covered.
These are all Roll and Tipping jobs.

The reason for going after Benjamin Moore, they still use Pigment in the
paint meaning you have to use Less coats.

The last time I used Red Interlux, I was very displeased as it took Four
(4) coats to cover the light gray primer. Back to Benjamin Moore for the
Bell Boy.
It will be original two tones of blue as I have never seen one like this.

So, there you go, that is My 2 cents

['flite-risk]

This boat is almost always going to be on a trailer, it will see both saltwater and freshwater, but probably never more than a day or two at a time in the salt and 3-4 days max in freshwater. I like to do a multi-day camping/fishing trip to Lake Roosevelt/Grand Coulee every year, but other than that, the boating I do is mostly day trips.

I'm planning to just prime the bottom with barrier coat epoxy and use whatever topside paint I choose on the bottom as well as topside. I'm definitely ok with a 20' paint job. I'm going to roll it on outside in the yard; it's going to have plenty of imperfections, I don't have the patience to spend weeks wet-sanding. I just need it to look shiney and clean enough that the landlubber spouse won't be horribly embarrassed to be seen on it. If the orange peel isn't so bad that it won't accept a wax job to shine it up once a year, it will be good enough.

-Drew T.

['flite-risk]

Finally finished painting the bottom.

After I got the old anti-fouling paint all scraped and scrubbed off, I found some damage that needed repaired, which isn't a huge surprise.

The keel area was pretty beat up from the bow about 1/3 of the way back, previous owners obviously liked beaching it, I had to fill and repair lots of gouges and ended up adding a couple layers of new 6oz cloth and epoxy over those repairs and all the way back to the stern over the keel area. The roller trailer had left many fairly deep dents/divots where the hull sat on the rollers for so many years, I filled and reinforced those areas with new fiberglass and epoxy. After surveying the bottom pretty good, there was one fairly big/deep crack on the starboard side where it looked like the boat either rolled against a rock when it was beached or bounced real hard on one of the trailer rollers when being loaded in less than ideal conditions. Once I sanded back the gelcoat I could tell the crack was deep and not just gelcoat cracking like I had found in a few other places. I ended up grinding about half the hull thickness in that area to get to good glass, so at least it wasn't all the way through, but it still had to be tapered out over a fairly substantial area and took quite a few layers of 1708 and epoxy to build it back up. After I built it back up, I faired it a little with thickened epoxy and added a couple thin layers of 6oz over an even broader area to tie it all together and make the final fairing a little easier. Then I used a bunch of Totalboat total fair epoxy fairing putty and hand-sanded for hours and hours with a 16" block to get it all relatively smooth and fair. Its not perfect, but good enough most people will never be able to tell how much work went into repairing the bottom of this hull.

Paint wise, I ended up doing a few coats of Totalboat total protect epoxy barrier coat primer and then covered that with some rustoleum marine topside paint that I plan to use on the rest of the boat as well. I can give the rustoleum topside paint a good recommendation to anyone else looking for paint. It is just an inexpensive alkyd enamel, but it has more UV protection than most typical house/implement enamels; it rolled on really nice with a small 6" foam roller cover and flows out nice and smooth. I just rolled it on in a few thin coats; I didn't even bother tipping with a brush. I did use some Majic brand enamel catalyst/hardener, and thinned it out just a bit with mineral spirts. With the catalyst/hardener added, it cures really hard and very glossy in about a day. I smoothed it all out before the last coat of rustoleum by wet-sanding with some 220 grit, and that last coat really looks like it could have been sprayed for the most part. There are a couple spots where its a little orange-peeley, and there are some roller marks/lines that didn't blend out completely, and some of my fairing is less than perfect, but its more than good-enough for me, especially for the side of the boat no one else ever sees.

Next step is to flip the hull back over and get it back on the trailer and under my carport whenever I get a non-rainy day to work on it again. I got the trailer all serviced with new wheel bearings and grease and new tires and new led lights and a new strap winch while the boat was off of it, so the trailer at least is ready to roll again.

-Drew T.

[Helmar]

Finally finished painting the bottom.

After I got the old anti-fouling paint all scraped and scrubbed off, I found some damage that needed repaired, which isn't a huge surprise.

The keel area was pretty beat up from the bow about 1/3 of the way back, previous owners obviously liked beaching it, I had to fill and repair lots of gouges and ended up adding a couple layers of new 6oz cloth and epoxy over those repairs and all the way back to the stern over the keel area. The roller trailer had left many fairly deep dents/divots where the hull sat on the rollers for so many years, I filled and reinforced those areas with new fiberglass and epoxy. After surveying the bottom pretty good, there was one fairly big/deep crack on the starboard side where it looked like the boat either rolled against a rock when it was beached or bounced real hard on one of the trailer rollers when being loaded in less than ideal conditions. Once I sanded back the gelcoat I could tell the crack was deep and not just gelcoat cracking like I had found in a few other places. I ended up grinding about half the hull thickness in that area to get to good glass, so at least it wasn't all the way through, but it still had to be tapered out over a fairly substantial area and took quite a few layers of 1708 and epoxy to build it back up. After I built it back up, I faired it a little with thickened epoxy and added a couple thin layers of 6oz over an even broader area to tie it all together and make the final fairing a little easier. Then I used a bunch of Totalboat total fair epoxy fairing putty and hand-sanded for hours and hours with a 16" block to get it all relatively smooth and fair. Its not perfect, but good enough most people will never be able to tell how much work went into repairing the bottom of this hull.

Paint wise, I ended up doing a few coats of Totalboat total protect epoxy barrier coat primer and then covered that with some rustoleum marine topside paint that I plan to use on the rest of the boat as well. I can give the rustoleum topside paint a good recommendation to anyone else looking for paint. It is just an inexpensive alkyd enamel, but it has more UV protection than most typical house/implement enamels; it rolled on really nice with a small 6" foam roller cover and flows out nice and smooth. I just rolled it on in a few thin coats; I didn't even bother tipping with a brush. I did use some Majic brand enamel catalyst/hardener, and thinned it out just a bit with mineral spirts. With the catalyst/hardener added, it cures really hard and very glossy in about a day. I smoothed it all out before the last coat of rustoleum by wet-sanding with some 220 grit, and that last coat really looks like it could have been sprayed for the most part. There are a couple spots where its a little orange-peeley, and there are some roller marks/lines that didn't blend out completely, and some of my fairing is less than perfect, but its more than good-enough for me, especially for the side of the boat no one else ever sees.

Next step is to flip the hull back over and get it back on the trailer and under my carport whenever I get a non-rainy day to work on it again. I got the trailer all serviced with new wheel bearings and grease and new tires and new led lights and a new strap winch while the boat was off of it, so the trailer at least is ready to roll again.

-Drew T.

I have not tried the much of the total boat product but its sounding like all is well. Same with the Rustoleum, have not tried that but I like the options of many colors.
Yeah, the bottoms get beat up as most of these old gals have been beached….
I like the idea that she came out like if it was sprayed. Means it lays down pretty good.
Great work Drew !

['flite-risk]

I have not tried the much of the total boat product but its sounding like all is well. Same with the Rustoleum, have not tried that but I like the options of many colors.
Yeah, the bottoms get beat up as most of these old gals have been beached….
I like the idea that she came out like if it was sprayed. Means it lays down pretty good.
Great work Drew !

The totalboat total protect primer was pretty thick, it didn't lay down quite as nice, but it is easy enough to sand smooth after and it covers really well and makes for a tough barrier layer to protect the old fiberglass. The Rustoleum lays down really nice and smooth but if you are covering a dark primer or a non-uniform surface with a light color it doesn't cover so great and will take lots of coats to get coverage. If you do a coat of white primer before the white rustoleum it looks awesome and comes out very nice with only a couple finish coats. Both the totalboat and the rustoleum (with enamel hardener added) came out very hard and scratch resistant on the test panels I did and the adhesion seems very good so far too. I'm happy with the results so far.

Not much has happened in the last week, I did get the hull rolled back over and back on the trailer and under the carport to keep it out of the weather, but need to get motivated again to get out there and make some more progress.

['flite-risk]

Found this during cleanup of the hull a while back, thought folks interested in these older uniflites might find it interesting. Handwritten, on the inside of the hull on the starboard side near the bow, I found what appears to be the original serial number. It reads 1554. My boat is registered as a 1960, but it has the taller squared off toerail design of the '61 and later boats from what I've seen online.

[Helmar]

Found this during cleanup of the hull a while back, thought folks interested in these older uniflites might find it interesting. Handwritten, on the inside of the hull on the starboard side near the bow, I found what appears to be the original serial number. It reads 1554. My boat is registered as a 1960, but it has the taller squared off toerail design of the '61 and later boats from what I've seen online.

I think Bell Boy had used that same location. Wish we had more information on how to ID these tags. I even called the last known dealer for Uniflite that was in Spokane Washington. Said they had nothing left at all. I remember I had waited almost a year and called them back hoping they had stashed old records somewhere but still, no..